A philosopher's stone or lapis philosophorum is a legendary substance capable of turning lead into gold. It is my hope that this blog will polish some of my (and possible yours as well) rough and confused philosophical musings into nuggets of things more valuable.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Vague objects

Few philosophers believe in vague objects. Vagueness, many say, stem from our language, our conceptual scheme, or our epistemic limitations. Attribution of vagueness to objects, they maintain, is committing the fallacy of verbalism or the fallacy of mistaking that the property of things have the property of the words that describe them. There are exceptions (David Lewis, Gareth Evans, and Roy Sorensen I believe) who believe in vague objects. But if quantum mechanics says particles can be vague why not all else that are often thought vague like mountains (or just about everything, both particulars and categories and natural kinds)?